


Running Away

by Morpheus626



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25062100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Another bit of Modern AU, inspired by my own love of night drives that I haven’t gotten to take with anyone in years and miss desperately.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Kudos: 3





	Running Away

**Author's Note:**

> Made a playlist for this one, a combo of what I was listening to while writing as well as music that I think would fit in their playlist for one of these drives: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Zk6fxk6XUJiaejoIhJ54d?si=pVdaxoX3SSSc0LN1enTTpQ

Most nights it’s unspoken, save for a few words.

“Your car?”

“Sure. Snacks?” 

“Got ‘em. Water?” 

“Got it. Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They save it for nights when neither of them work, and when neither of them work the next day, so they don’t have to worry about a time crunch. That would ruin the flow of it completely.

It feels liquid and velvet (black with the smallest but shiniest rhinestones, just like the night sky), windows down so the cool summer air can flood the car, and it’s almost too cold but the goosebumps and shivers feel good, and make the hoodie he wears all the more comfortable. 

He watches Eugene do the same, snuggling into the sweater he wears, one he stole from Snafu back when they first started dating. He’ll never ask for it back, but he wears it whenever Eugene has to travel for school or work, soaking in the scent of Eugene to tide him over till his boy is back home and in his arms. 

Any music on is kept low, their playlists full of songs that don’t play so much as ooze, drift, slide from one into the other with beats that sit perfectly in the background, good to listen to but not intrusive on any conversation they might spark up.

A lot of times, there isn’t any, and that’s okay. Just the sound of the highway and the wind and everything they pass by. He focuses on the sounds and the odd and occasionally not so great scents that are all a part of the drives. It’s all sensations and feeling and nothing of what they both know awaits them back at home. 

The worries. The fears. The responsibilities, big and small. The bills. The phone calls to make that neither of them want to make, but that they cheer-lead each other through. The sense of being trapped, because they can’t afford to move out of the city even though moving elsewhere and getting a small house or condo would be less of a waste of money than dropping it monthly on rent on the apartment, and how can they try and save for the wedding like this or put anything more than the few dollars they try to shove in savings each pay period and-

No. Stop. Not right now, not tonight. Tonight is about the velvet sky he swears he can feel under his fingertips just by looking at it as they go on down the highway, about the cookies Eugene baked earlier this week (sugar, “sweet like you” he told Snafu, and his lips tasted just like it, from his taste tests to ensure they were up to his personal par as a baker, “because I don’t feed my man bad cookies.”) sat in between them balanced on the cup-holders in a container Eugene’s mother had given them for their apartment-warming, about how free it feels to be out there so late at night and nobody knows who they are or where they are or why they are and who thought not having any answers or needing to answer to anybody would feel so good even if it’s only temporary.

And when they finally pull over for a quick break, at a truck stop with a bathroom that’s decently clean and a vending machine so they can get another few bottles of water because they never bring big enough reusable ones from home, they linger. 

On the hood of the car, a blanket spread out over it, watching the stars together, knowing the second a cop pulls up (and one always does) they’ll have to tear it all down and get back on the road, answering ‘no trouble sir, just enjoying the night sir, yes we know the time sir, yes of course we’ll be on our way sir, of course we know that bad things can happen at night sir, we didn’t mean any harm sir,’ and it burns Snafu up to have to cater to some kid in a uniform that doesn’t fit him, who doesn’t know what real ‘trouble’ and trauma look like and wouldn’t be able to stomach it if he did, and if he did know he’d understand that sometimes the only cure for it is a taste of freedom and night air and your lover’s hand in yours while he points out the brightest stars that he likes the best, even though you both know there might be even more beautiful ones just hidden by the pollution of the nearby city lights, but it doesn’t matter because you can see the ones he points to and you tell him how if you could you’d buy him that star and when you both die that’s where you’ll go, to wait out the end of the universe together, all energy and left over soul burning in the coldness of space. 

But being back on the road isn’t so bad, because another truck stop eventually presents itself and they can try again, and sometimes there’s enough time for Eugene to fall asleep against him, his nose cold against Snafu’s chest as he snuggles close, his fingers frozen so Snafu wraps them in his hands, pulls them under his hoodie to warm them, shivering at the touch more than the cold. 

They take turns the rest of the night, pulling over as needed to swap seats, until the cookies and water are gone and they have to finally sit down and calculate where they are and if they can just turn around and head straight back or if they’ve taken enough random off and on ramps that they need to actually pay attention to how they get home. 

If they’re particularly lucky, they can find a proper truck stop with all the amenities, a restaurant and gas station with a huge lot where trucks and cars are parked full of sleeping truckers and even some families in their campers that they never really know how to park decently. 

But Snafu can forgive those people that, because it hardly matters those nights, because those are the nights they don’t drive home that early morning. Instead they put up the sun covers on the front windshield, make sure the doors are locked, and take the other extra blanket with them in the backseat that they’ve pushed down so there’s room to lay out and cuddle. The waking is always an extra rough sort of groggy, but it’s never a grumpy one, just the moment of remembering that they’re somewhere that’s nowhere to them, just another place to stop and rest, the name of which they’ll forget until they drive out another night and find it again. 

If they can, they call in sick for the day after that. They don’t need the time to drive back, that they can do in the night, but it gives them just a little bit more time to extend the feeling of Free and Happy and Unconcerned With Everything and Anything, even once they’re back in their apartment and the Usual Bullshit starts to creep back into their minds, on claws that clack and keep them up at night.

But the extra day can keep it away for just a little longer, and he can hang onto that feeling when they’re back at their jobs, in the depths of the routine and boring and stable but unsatisfying. 

It gets him by until the next drive, the next set of sweets (his turn this time, he wants to make beignets, though he’ll have to go careful on the powdered sugar, or bring them extra napkins and a change of clothes just in case), the next rush of cool night air and stars that in his mind he’s bought for Eugene already, and they shine just to make his boy smile, though that smile outshines them by miles. 

And maybe this time they’ll remember the extra big water thermoses and bottles, bring a couple even. 

Maybe this time they’ll be driving away for good, with all their shit packed up and the cat in her carrier in the backseat, on to somewhere new and beautiful that only knows them as a bunch of nobodies, that doesn’t care who they are or what they do, just lets them live. 

They can only hope for that, someday.

Until then, he can work and bake and prepare for the next drive and buy a black velvet blanket as another extra for the backseat, so they can keep the night sky with them even while they sleep.


End file.
